Glistening play packed chock full of bitingly funny epigrams

From the Salisbury Journal, first published Thursday 9th Nov 2006.

A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE, SALISBURY PLAYHOUSE

SONGBIRDS twitter as the play opens on the terrace at Hunstanton Chase. Lady Hunstanton is hosting a society house party and the conversation on the terrace is not so different from that of the birds, sharp and witty idle gossip about characters, soon to be introduced to the audience.

Lord Illingworth, a rakish performance by Trevor Sellers, announces he is taking a new secretary, young Gerald Arbuthnot, and Lady Hunstanton, played to eccentric perfection by Sandra Dickinson, calls for Gerald's mother, Mrs Arbuthnot, to join the party.

The play is crammed full of prosaic epigrams, often cynical and nearly always bitingly funny. Lord Illingworth speaks almost exclusively in these pithy epigrams, and gives a fine comic turn with the socialite Mrs Allonby, a slick and calculating performance by Clare Swinburne.

A Woman of No Importance was written in 1893, just two years before Oscar Wilde's own scandal that ended his career so abruptly. Wilde was often considered an outsider, and it is an outsider's viewpoint that shines out in Lucy Pitman-Wallace's outstanding production.

Comedy quickly turns to melodrama, as the production changes direction in the after-dinner drawing room of the second act. As the stereotypical society ladies show their truly awful colours of snobbishness and bitchiness, they forget the presence of young American heiress, Hester Worsley, played with depth and intelligence by newcomer, Alisa Arnah, who has very different views on moral righteousness.

And then the pale figure of Mrs Rachel Arbuthnot arrives, her dark outfit a fitting contrast to the glamorous robes worn by the other guests, only to find that the man offering her son employment, is in fact Gerald's father, who abandoned her 20 years previously. Victoria Wicks gives a quietly controlled and impassioned performance, as the wronged and principled woman of no importance of the title, and it is her character and Hester who are able to stand outside the circle of hypocrisy.

The production is beautiful to look at, with Arts and Crafts inspired dcor, period costumes and Jessica Curtis' proscenium arched set offering a pictorial image of society at play.

Lucy Pitman-Wallace's production positively glistens, while also highlighting more serious moral issues behind the surface wit, and she has assembled an excellent ensemble cast.

A Woman of No Importance is in the main house until Saturday, November 25.

- Anne Morris

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